Famous James' Ribs with Sawyers "Secret" Sauce

My husband's great secret is that he's actually a good cook. A great cook, in point of fact, when properly motivated.  To him, cooking is scientific procedure, and he approaches it with the same methodical consistency as he does when running labs in his classroom. He's even got cooking chops, of a sort, having taken foods (or cooking, or home ec, or whatever the PC term is these days) back in high school.

Nevertheless, it takes quite a bit to get him excited about cooking. Cooking for a crowd can do it, as can the macho male stereotype of grilling.  It is one of the only ways my Mister is stereotypical to his gender.

During one of these rare times, searching for a dish to impress, he took Alton Brown's ribs recipe, tweaked the rub, then paired it with a secret sauce recipe we got from a restaurant since closed. The Frankenstein-like recipe stitching worked, so well, in fact, that this is now his signature dish.

I felt it needed a wider audience than it currently has, especailly the sauce (until Sawyers rises again, at least): It's vingeagry, but thick, and uses coffee, raisins, and a ton of garlic. 

Alton's ribs recipe is unimpeachable: he braises in the oven, then finishes on the grill. However, it's not true barbecue. But it does make for a super tender result.

Famous James' Ribs with Sawyers "Secret" Sauce

The Sauce (adapted from Sawyers Gourmet Pancake House)
Make it at least a day in advance. This makes, literally, a vat of sauce. It's a restaurant recipe, remember? So plan to freeze at least half when you make it. I like to do this in a crock-pot on a lazy Sunday, but you can do it in a stock pot too.


2 cups brewed coffee
4 cups ketchup
3 cups yellow mustard
1 cup molasses
2 cups apple cider vinegar
5 cups brown sugar
6 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cinammon
8 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups raisins, chopped
 A stock pot, very large (6 qt +) saucepan, or 6 quart Crock-Pot 
 
Crock-Pot Method. Give yourself 8 hours at home, mostly unattended.
Put all the ingredients but the raisins in a slow cooker. Turn cooker on to low, and stir well. Come back and stir every half hour or so until everything is evenly mixed and it starts to get bubbly on the edges.  Turn off, add the raisins, stir. Reserve a cup and a half of sauce for the recipe, and freeze the rest. 

Stovetop method. Give yourself 2 hours, but it won't take quite that long.

Put all the ingredients but the raisins in a stock  pot large enough to hold it all. Stir well, bring to simmer, turn heat to low. Stir until everything is  completely mixed. Turn off, add the raisins, stir. Reserve a cup and a half of sauce for the recipe, and freeze the rest. 

The rub (Adapted from Who Loves Ya? Baby Back Ribs by Alton Brown)

1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup tablespoon chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons chipotle powder
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder

1 Tablespoon Old Bay Seasoning
11/2 teaspoons dried Italian herb mix

1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder

Put it all in a large container with a tight fitting lid. Break up any big chunks of brown sugar. Cap the lid and shake the ever living heck out of it until well mixed. Shake again just before using. You should have enough for this batch of ribs and  the next.

The ribs
the rub (from above)
the sauce (from above)
2 2 pound slabs of baby back ribs
a large sheet pan
1 roll of heavy duty aluminum foil
basting brush
1 cup white wine
2 Tablespoons vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
2 cloves garlic

Step 1. The night before. Give yourself a half hour.
Combine all ingredients for the braising liquid, then rub your ribs. Move a quarter to a half cup of your rub into a small bowl. This way,  if you dip your hand in after touching the ribs, you haven't contaminated all the rub.
Lay down a sheet of aluminum foil over the sheet pan large enough to wrap the ribs. Sprinkle rub on both sides of ribs, then rub it in, focusing on the meatiest side. Put the ribs down so that they look like a smiley face or U when you look at them, then wrap with foil, but leave one end open. Put the liquid in, then seal them up. Do the second set of ribs. Let them  sit on the sheet pan overnight.

Step 2. When you are ready to cook. Give yourself 4 hours between the time you start and the time you eat, mostly unattended.
Preheat the oven to 250.
Check to make sure the foil packets aren't leaking. If they are, wrap in another layer of foil. Carefully
Put ribs in and cook for  3 hours.
Remove ribs from the oven. You can hold them  here for a day in the fridge if you want to do work in advance, but make sure the ribs  come to room temperature before you do the next steps.
Open up the foil. Cut them into 2-3 rib pieces.
Turn on your broiler or grill.
Use the basting brush to coat the ribs with sauce.
Broil or grill just until the sauce sticks to the ribs and just barely starts to caramelize.
Enjoy with more sauce as you like.

BBQ 5 - Epilogue

Well, the meat was overcooked. So, I sliced it as thinly as I could manage, against the grain, chopped it into small pieces, and dosed it with a good store-bought BBQ sauce. I'll be serving it on toasted onion buns tonight, as a sloppy Joe-type sandwich.

I tried a few test pieces as I was chopping, and it's a bit chewy, for sure, but the flavor isn't bad. Hopefully it will pass muster with The Mister.

I should probably have had the meat thermometer out sooner. Even so, the excess of coals doomed me. Next time, I'll make sure to use fewer coals, which should make a difference. Live and learn. Such are the perils of semi-live blogging.

I did, however, have a pretty cool improv flash of brilliance after I took the meat off the grill. There was still a ton of heat left, so I cooked a peach pie! On the grill!

I spread the coals out into one layer, instead of being on one side. I tightly wrapped the pie in aluminum foil, making sure none of the edges were peeking. I also put the pie on top of a heavy baking sheet, to help diffuse the heat coming up from the bottom of the coals. Since this was a frozen pie, I let it cook for about 2 hours.

It came out pretty well. We got a tornado-producing thunderstorm halfway through the cooking time, so I didn't have a chance to uncover the pie to let it brown properly. So the top crust got a tad doughy. The bottom crust was pretty dark, though--not quite to burnt stage, but more summer tan brown then golden brown.

For the future, I'd probably leave out the bottom crust, and just do a pie crust or cobbler topping. Since this was a pre-made pie, I didn't have much choice in the matter.

This method is definitely something I'll try to perfect, and work on for the future. I was able to cook a pie without having to heat up my kichen, and when the weather's as hot as it has been this week, that's worth a lot. Look for some more blog posts about doing pie on a grill later this summer.

BBQ 4 - Hot

I brought my meat thermometer out to check the brisket, and while I was out there, I decided to check the ambient air temperature. I stepped well away from the grill so I didn't skew the results higher.

According to my meat thermometer, it's 86 degrees out today. The humidity is such that, if I spend more than a minute ouside, I begin to condense a layer of sweat on my body.

My meat is also hot. Too hot. In my excitement with the coals--I can make fire!--I got too many going at once. So, even though it's indirect heat, the side of the meat closest to the coals is getting a fair bit of char on it.

The thermometer says it's at 195 degrees and climbing. Medium-Rare is 140. I'm hoping my thermometer's wrong, but I'm doubting it. The meat's been on for about 2 hours of the 4 I was aiming for. But I think there's no doubt about it--I gotta take the meat off.

***

Meat's off the grill. I'm gonna let it sit for a ten minutes or so, then cut into it and see what I've got. If I need to, I have enough hot coals to cook it some more.

At any rate, everyone who owns a grill should invest in a pair of welding gloves. They're long, so they cover more of your hands and arms, so you don't have to worry about getting burned. They work so well, you can manipulate the coals with your gloved hands!

http://www.google.com/products?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-35,GGLD:en&q=welding+gloves&um=1

BBQ 3 - The Mop, and authenticity

I've watched enough Food Network shows and read enough books to know what the "rules" are barbecue are, more or less. The experts disagree on some points, but overall, you should:

1. Cook the meat Low and slow--the slower, the better.
2. Cook over natural chunk charcoal
3. Use some kind of wood for smoke flavor
4. Use a rub (and keep this rub a secret on pain of death)
5. Do not sauce while cooking. After cooking, sauce is optional and hotly debated.
6. Mop meat with flavorful liquid regularly to keep meat moist.

I'm following about half of the rules. I'm breaking some on purpose.

I'm cooking the meat low and slow, but since I'm using coals, and not a smoker, the heat is probably going to be higher than is ideal. There's not much I can do about this right now.

I'm not using natural chunk charcoal. I love Alton, but I gotta go against him here. The stuff is a pain in the ass to use. It burns out very quickly--we're talking minutes--it burns hot, and it flames up a lot. I might use it for grilling, sometimes, but I'll sooner get a smoker than use natural chunk charcoal to try to barbecue something.

I'm not using wood because I don't have any on hand. Well, I've got some pine, but that's not a good flavor to impart in meat, well, not in the states, anyways.

I am using a rub. But I am sharing the details. Caveat Emptor: I've not tried the rub before, so I don't know how it will be. I do suggest that you make your own rub, because it's just fun to toss stuff together.

I'm not using sauce.

I am using a mop. I'm basting the meat about every half hour with:

1 cup vinegar
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon paprika

The recipes I've found online usually include beer and/or coffee, vinegar, salt, and some spices. I had no beer, so I used a bottle of red I opened the other night. I wanted to keep the mop simple.

I've got a silicone basting brush I'm using to baste the meat, but some hard-core guys use an actual cotton mop for this purpose. Not my style. I'd probably use a clean cotton dishtowel if I wanted to get a similar effect.

I'm thinking I should probably dig out my meat thermometer to get a better idea when the brisket will be done. Be back soon.

Barbecue part 2

Well, I've had my first problem.

You'd think a simple piece of equipment like a chimney starter would be a no-brainer to use. Not so. After the third attempt to light my coals, I called The Mister home.

I was stuffing the paper into the starter wrong. There's a grate at the bottom of the starter. I was putting paper above the grate. But it was supposed to go below the grate.

Oops.

But now that I've figured it out, I've lit another batch of coals all by myself.

Woo-hoo!

I've shoved the coals to one side of the Webber, and put the meat on the other side. It's been on the grill about a half hour.

For flavor, I put a spice rub on the brisket earlier in the morning.

I didn't really measure what was in the rub, but I figure the recipe below is a fair estimate of what all went into it.

1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
a few tablespoons each of:
chili powder
onion powder
celery salt
paprika
cumin
curry powder
celery salt
a little bit of
cayenne pepper
black pepper

I massaged all this into the meat pretty good and let it sit while I wrangled with the coals.

Off to mop the meat and check on the coals. What's a mop? Not something to clean floors, in this case. Stay tuned to the next installment to find out more.

Barbecue Part 1

I've been stunningly busy this spring into mid-summer, and have not had much time to blog. As such, my energy to cook creatively has been fairly low, and I've been recharging my culinary batteries. But with the farmers' markets in full bloom, and my CSA share starting in less than two weeks, Cooking will soon become a necesity.

However, this weekend finds me at home. So I've caught up on laundry, tamed the jugle that is our front yard, and decided to do a bit of slow cooking.

I'm doing barbecue.

Not grilling, but barbecue. Where you cook something low and slow over coals, with perhaps a touch of fragrant wood sprinkled atop.

I have to admit, I haven't used the Webber all that much in the 2 years we've had it. It's been nice that The Mister likes to grill, so those days I sit out and let him have at it. But, as he said, 3-5 hours at the coals is a little too much for him.

So, after a quick lesson on grilling, The Mister went off to work and I'm alone at home with the dog, some Kingsford, 2 chimney starters, and 3 pounds of dry-aged highland beef brisket.

Further updates as events warrant.